- Hard to see how George Washington University ever felt
like it had to fire men's basketball coach Mike Lonergan. He sounds like such a
quality guy, yet the school broke him off over the weekend and issued a
statement that just doesn’t make any sense. "The university recently
conducted a thorough investigation into allegations concerning Coach
Lonergan," university provost Forrest Maltzman said in a statement.
"The university concluded that Coach Lonergan had engaged in conduct
inconsistent with the university's values." Wait….telling a player he
belonged in a "transgender league" and demeaning another by saying
his son would have to depend on welfare his whole life don’t fit with the
university’s value system? What about having a former player say that he needed
therapy to cope with the post-traumatic stress disorder of playing for
Lonergan? The university clearly overreacted to multiple former players and
staff members claiming that Lonergan routinely abused his players verbally and
emotionally in his assessments and critiques of them, creating an offensive
environment and causing many of them to leave the program as a result. So what
if the team went on an international trip to Japan this offseason without him
and reportedly developed a great camaraderie sans their emotionally abusive
coach? Clearly, the world has gone soft when a loud, abrasive coach with no
soul cannot engage in hate speech, belittle and dehumanize his players and
assistant coaches in the name of winning basketball games and get away with
it……..
- This is certainly a new twist on the idea of confrontations
between police and armed civilians. There have been far too many instances of
cops shooting unarmed civilians or children with BB or toy guns, but this is
quite possibly the first instance of an armed kook with a video game controller
holding the law at bay for four hours at a gas station. Police in Rehoboth,
Massachusetts say a man who engaged them in a four-hour standoff at a
Cumberland Farms store and gas station did so not with a gun, but what turned
out to be an Xbox controller. Of course, no one tipped them off to that fact
when officers were called to the Cumberland Farms at the intersection of Routes
44 and 118 around 7 a.m. after the man allegedly threatened the clerk. Witnesses
claimed the suspect, Benjamin Kimball, appeared to have a gun tucked into the
waistband of his pants, but when he was arrested shortly before noon, there was
no weapon found. There is the obvious question of who rolls with a video game
controller tucked into their pants, but Kimball hasn’t explained that yet. What
we do know is that after threatening the clerk, Kimball went back outside to
his SUV, which was parked at the gas pumps, and locked himself inside. “He ran
toward his vehicle and told the officer he had to back off, that he had a gun
and a bomb and he was going to blow the place up,” Rehoboth Police Chief Jim
Trombetta said. “Two other officers arrived on scene and he pulled the gas hose
off of one of the pumps.” The pumps were turned off, the store was evacuated
and police surrounded the area, eventually moving in and apprehending Kimball
when it became clear he was unarmed……….
- The reboot of the Mad Max franchise was a critical and
commercial success, so of course the powers that be behind the film are going
to find a way to crank out another film in the series, be it a sequel, prequel
or straight-up rip-off of an existing film. Thus, a Mad Max prequel movie reportedly
in development, with its purported focus being the backstory of Charlize Theron’s
character, Imperator Furiosa. Last year’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” revived the
franchise and starred Tom Hardy and Theron. It was directed by George Miller,
received positive reviews and has grossed more than $375 million at theaters
worldwide. Word on the street is that pre-production on the new project, with a
working title of “Mad Max: The Wasteland,” is underway. Miller is on the record
as saying he’s planning on making more Mad Max films and already has two
possible ideas lined up. Of course, making either of them is going to mean
dealing with the issues Theron and Hardy had with each other while making “Mad
Max: Fury Road.” Theron said the tension may have actually made the movie
better, but odds are everyone would like a calmer set next time. Maybe the
movie is what it is because we struggled so much with each other, and those
characters had to struggle so much with each other," Theron said. "If
we were chum-chum, maybe the movie would have been 10 times worse." Either
10 times worse or fodder for 10 more sequels, prequels and spin-offs, and more
likely the latter……..
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! It’s not over in Ukraine for those
who want to believe that living in Ukraine means people should act and live as
Ukrainians and not as Russians, even though Russia is clearly determined to
slowly and not-so-subtly absorb/hijack/annex Ukraine to expand Bad Vlad Putin’s
evil empire. It may not have been a massive uprising, but the weekend was
marked by dozens of right-wing activists blocking the entrance to Russia's
embassy in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, where a polling station has been set up for
Russian citizens who wish to vote in their country's parliamentary elections. It
could have been a disappointingly boring demonstration if not for one
demonstrator who was not going to be pushed around by John Q. Law and scuffled
with police when they tried to step to him. The nationalist Svoboda party
helped make this entertaining gathering happen and one of its leaders, Igor
Miroshnichenko, was among the demonstrators. Miroshnichenko boldly proclaimed
that Ukraine should "not allow the enemy and state aggressor that stole
Crimea to conduct illegal elections in Ukraine” and there’s really nothing
inaccurate in his remarks. Lest the world forget, Russia “annexed” Crimea in
2014 following the months of unrest that drove out Ukraine's Russia-friendly
president, a move denounced before, during and after the territory-thieving by
Putin and his crew. Since then, the world at large has moved on to other various
conflicts and crises around the globe, but it’s clear that not everyone
believes Ukraine v. Russia is a finished fight………
No comments:
Post a Comment